Gas stations on the main drags of the Lewiston-Auburn on Tuesday night looked a little like ghost towns.
Of course, with the state bucking the national trend — and not in a good way — it’s no real wonder as the average price of gas in Maine remained nearly 10 cents higher than the national average.
According to MaineGasPrices.com, Maine’s average gas price Tuesday was $3.55 per gallon; the national average was $3.45 per gallon. The website is operated by GasBuddy Organization, a collection of websites on which consumers post and view retail gas-pricing information by state.
“I kinda look for the best prices,” said Ryan Coy, 31, of Lewiston, as a friend pumped $40 worth of gas into his Ford van Tuesday. “I noticed it was going back up. It was going down for a while and it had been nice.”
Coy, who is in a wheelchair and needs a larger van with a lift, said he was thankful the van he drives has a smaller V6 engine than his old van, which had a V8. Spending the extra cash on gas definitely takes a toll, he said.
“One of the key factors influencing Maine’s gas prices is refinery output — particularly East Coast refinery output,” said Gregg Laskoski, a senior petroleum analyst with GasBuddy.
Laskoski said East Coast refinery output is at the lowest level of the five regions reviewed weekly by the U.S. Department of Energy. Lower production levels keep prices higher because there is less supply to meet demand, Laskoski said.
According to national data provided by Laskoski, East Coast refinery production is at 81.4 percent. That’s nearly 10 percent lower than the next-lowest production rate, which is the West Coast’s rate of 90.8 percent.
Refineries in the Gulf Coast and Midwest are producing at 93 percent, while those in the Rocky Mountains top the list at 97.4 percent.
Average prices in the Twin Cities were up one cent Tuesday over gas prices Monday according to MaineGasPrices.com. The average price of gas in Lewiston was $3.56 per gallon on Tuesday, one cent higher than its neighbor across the Androscoggin, which saw an average of $3.55 per gallon for the same day.
And yet, while prices continue to rise in Vacationland right at the heart of summer travel season, the national average seems to be holding steady. One silver lining to the dark exhaust cloud hanging over Maine drivers is that the state’s prices remain nearly 27 cents per gallon lower than the same time last year.
Laskoski said one other hope for East Coast drivers is the recent purchase and rebirth of one of the region’s largest refineries in Philadelphia, which originally was scheduled to close later this month. The refinery is the largest of three Pennsylvania-based operations facing tough times and possible closure, which leads to lower production, Laskoski said.
“The ones in Pennsylvania are among the largest on the East Coast,” Laskoski said. “So, as they go, so goes the East Coast.”
Laskoski expects the recent deal at the Philadelphia refinery will lead to increased production and lower gas prices, but he didn’t expect the pain at the pump to get any easier until August.
To see more from the Sun Journal, visit sunjournal.com.
Interesting……….because most of the gasoline coming into Maine is coming from St. John, New Brunswick and Northern Europe! Mr. Laskoski fails to mention that! “A key factor is the east coast refinery output.” That’s BS!!!! It’s just corporate price gouging due to the tourist season. The rich get richer…………..
Data please. And even the conservative daily Bible, the Wall Street Journal, had an article a couple of months ago describing the East Coast refineries and their supply problems, for less expensive, purer crude, that is.
Let me take this time to remind everyone that when President Obama took office gas was $1.78 per gallon. Hope and change !
And 5 million more people were out of work. We were in the worst recession since the great depression thanks to Bush II’s unfunded wars and tax breaks for the rich.
So if you take away tax breaks for the rich, jobs will magically appear???
Obama jobs bill where each job created cost taxpayers 475 thousand dollars.. Oh the government is so efficent creating jobs
Don’t forget, the republicans wanted to send our jobs away so now unemployment is still high and tax revenues are low. The only ones that fiasco helped was the federal puppet masters.
I’m no fan of Obama, but I do appreciate the virtue of fairness, so here goes:
I bought my Silverado when gas was $4.20/gallon in Bangor. The date: April 29, 2008. The President was G.W. Bush.
In one post you folks will lampoon Bush/Obama/LePage/Baldacci as an incompetent buffoon that can hardly chew gum and walk. In the next post, that villain will have nearly omnipotent powers as he/she rolls out of bed with an evil plan to ruin your day.
It is time to grow up and stop thinking like small children.
Please.
Small children know dishonesty when they see it. There is no comparison. The GOP is manipulating them.
I’d agree with you, except the childishness doesn’t seem to belong to any particular political party.
Most of what goes on out here for political debate sounds like second graders arguing about whose dad can beat up every else’s dad. The guilty posters are righties and lefties – I’d say pretty nearly in equal numbers.
Thats right. It’s STILL George Bush’s fault !!
Yeah he did a great job bringing down from then allmost $4:00 Range From Months earlier!
And all he did was get elected!
Ridiculous post.
Your evaluation of his/her post is generous, but otherwise correct.
and 6 months before he took office it was almost $5 a gallon – your point?
Hmmm, then how does that account for the often 6-15 cents difference in prices between Portland and Bangor? I drive to Calais frequently and always plan to gas up in the Newport to BAngor area because it has been less expensive then Greater Portland. Even the same company!
Fill up on route 9 in Clifton as it is always 10 to 12 cents cheaper than Bangor.
I did! I did! On my way to and from!
This article would be an excellent introduction for a book entitled ‘Gas Prices for Dummies’. I wonder if the author even considered the effects of new EPA (Barry) regulations, the tensions in Iran, supply (and the constant threat poised by our govt), demand, summer blends, transportation costs, etc. The information contained in the article seems as if the writer looked out the office window, at the local gas station, to write the article.
Heck of a lot better (although not as complete as the WSJ article I mentioned earlier) than your skimmer’s eye view of the situation. Granted, all of these contribute, but those mentioned in the article are important too. Crude doesn’t magically appear at the refinery door and inexpensive gasoline magically appear at the exit.
Gasoline is a traded commodity the price of which is set by the commodities exchanges. Turn on CNBC, on any given day, and watch the crawl at the top. Add 50 to 80 cents to the price you see – for mark-ups, transportation, fed taxes and state taxes – and that will be your local price in 10 to 14 days. Prices started rising, 3 weeks ago, when Amma-gonna-do-a-jihad threatened to block the shipping channels by his house. Prices went back down on the continued dismal (Obama) economics news, last week. These are the factors taken into account in my ‘skimmer’s eye’ view.
Of course, there can be no reference to Obama and his higher energy rate interest for Americans–
Remember that he said electricity rates would be skyrocketing, also. And, for what it is worth, gas in eastern WA state is over $4.00 a gal. so how does that compute with the numbers given here and the western refineries being at 97.4% production?
NObama has so many willing to spin the tales for him, but we have to keep on keeping on as Americans, and we really should be outraged by the latest remark of “you did not really start that businees by yourself.” Of course, NObama has no idea about starting anything but chaos, since he is the “community organizer in chief.”
The difference in refineries is, as cited before, described well in the WSJ artilce a couple of weeks ago. The President doesn’t need “spinnners’ for something for which he (or anyone else in government) has little control.
We’re supposed to feel grateful that gas is 27 cents cheaper than last year??? We need to get the speculators out of the oil business. They only cause prices to be higher without adding any benefits to the consumer.
Time to go for the electric hybrid. Time for the green economy to flatten the GOP.
Cut that gas expense by third!!
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